where are we?
by Nostalgian
Summary: Minvade20.10: America growing up in an entirely different definition of humanity, learns age, death and most of all a terrible, hungry kind of loneliness.


All works belong to their respective owners.

**Author's Note:** De-anon from Minvasion.

Young America here, dealing with growing up. Unfortunately this is a songfic (I like songfiction oh dear oh dear) set to Imogen Heap's _Hide & Seek_ which by the way is simply beautiful.

* * *

_**Where are we?.**_

* * *

_______Hide and seek  
Trains and sewing machines_

* * *

America didn't know her name, only that she was his best friend in the entire world - no universe - well, maybe Britain. No, Britain was his brother, and they don't count as friends, because otherwise Britain would be his best friend in every single everything, and that can't be right, because she is. They play tag in the long grass, and the way she cracks every blade of it makes him laugh. He shows her how to run silent through it, like a cricket on the wind. He jumps through it like a deer, or rabbit, and then pressed low into it, like a wolf, springs out like a bobcat and grabs her like an eagle with big rounded talons; they collapse into the tickling grass and laugh.

She's his best friend, because she never questions why he knows which things can be eaten, and how to spear a fish in a shimmery river. She merely accepts a fistful of berries from his fingers, and shows him how to strip scales off the fish he's caught. He shows her how to roast it over an open fire. They eat everything, and America panics when he eats a bone, and she just snickers at him.

At some point, he got into the habit of telling her about trains, and she sits inside - they don't go out as much anymore - and sews patches onto socks. Her fingers are nimbler and surer, but there's a loss of innocent and intuition that makes him sad. She has moved from grace, and incidental skill, a little like luck, into an experienced, knowledgeable way of moving her hands. Her fingers weave in and out of the cloth like a sewing machine; all wrong and backwards.

That's how they make sewing machines - it took a long time, because it's so unlike how people sew. Sewing machines sew things wrong.

America tries to coax her to go down to the stream with him today, but she simply cups her stomach where it has begun to bulge out like the moon's girth. She holds the curve like it explains why she won't play with him. America sets his mouth in an unhappy pout, but he knows he can't convince her, so he gets off the chair and darts out of the door.

One day, she stops accepting him, and why he still looks like a child whilst she has grown lean and tall. For almost a se'enday, he is told not to come visit her, and when he is eventually allowed to, her stomach is thin; her skin translucent, and she instead cups a tiny child.

At first his blue eyes light up - another playmate?

She sends him away for the first time that day, and is no longer his best friend. But that's okay, maybe he'll find some new friends? Lonely, he crouched in the ticklish grass and twitched his nose back at his rabbit.

* * *

_____When busy streets a mess with people  
Would stop to hold their heads heavy_

* * *

People love to play hide and seek, because the land - so busy, and stuffy, and untidy with people - hides some familiar faces from him. America has yet to connect some basic sense of empathy; he's simply too young.

He sits to the side during the days people wear nothing but black, and swings his little, fawn-like legs. Watches, with puzzled, but unconcerned eyes as the crowd all hangs their heads, as though something is pressing and heavy over them.

But everything is so light for America, the years the lightest breeze on his skin, that he doesn't quite realize time can make people brittle at the bones.

* * *

___Spin me around again and rub my eyes  
This can't be happening_

* * *

The first time America realizes that age is a heavy burden for people, he wails like there's a knife in his cheek. The townsfolk try to reason with him, but as much as he struggled to empathize with them, they struggle to empathize with him back. It is at times like these - America screaming and crying and weeping, suddenly impossibly aware of loss, hard and pointy on his breast - that they realize he operates in a completely different definition for humanity.

* * *

_Hide and seek  
__Trains and sewing machines_

* * *

America hides in the clawing forests for what are pebbles, skipped over the surface of a moment. When he emerges, he recognizes almost nobody, and those he does recognize are bowed, wrinkled and dried out with years in the sun. His sun.

Heart-broken, he returns to the forests where trees age almost as slowly as he does.

Eventually, something else that can be as old as he can, that is older than him, steps off a boat, and - following an internal compass - pads into the forest.

Britain looks down at him, and then gathers him into his arms that reflect no time. Britain is his best friend in the whole universe, and America whimpers in the damp warmth of Britain. Britain smells like rain and never changes.

* * *

_All those years  
They were here first_

* * *

Britain tries to explain to America, but there is very little left to explain.

You will live forever. You will age so much slower. You will be left behind as everybody grows up, to be human, and you are not - and cannot be - human.

America knows all this, but that doesn't make it any less painful, except Britain has it upside down like a sewing machine. He doesn't want to be human, he cannot imagine anything except breathing forever and ever and ever. He wants everybody to work like that. He wants immortality for absolutely everyone. He has no interest in mortality, but his aversion to loneliness, and intense desire for companionship is stronger than his tears.

He is so upset - something hard and empty, like a chillblain - in his chest. It makes his lungs tight, and uncomfortable. He can't even cry. It's too strong.

Britain tries to carry America back to the colonists, but America screams shrilly - about strangers and having to make friends over and over and over again. At years of grief and losing everything on repeat, that he is not ready to handle yet. Britain with practiced, and strong hands builds a shelter in the forest, and lets America sleep against his chest with that forever heartbeat like an unhappy, vulnerable child.

That is what he is, after all?

* * *

_Oily marks appear on walls  
Where pleasure moments hung before_

* * *

America finally grips Britain's hand tightly, and they walk back, heads high and eyes raised firmly to the horizon. It's actually easy; time has never weighed down the heads of nations, transcendent as they are to age, and resolved against time as they are. Immunized against death.

Not against loneliness, though, and America clutches at Britain's hand.

Finally, America strikes up a conversation with one of his - his, his his hishishishis - people, and tells them all about coal and fog and smoke and rumbling trains. His blue eyes brighten, and look up at the sky like it's opened wide for him alone. He finds it easy to make friends again and not long later, Britain has to leave again. He always says has to, and America believes this for now.

Well, it's probably true.

* * *

_The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity  
Of this still life_

* * *

America discovers nations are vulnerable to other side-effects of years, as he stops playing with children his age (at least relatively, everything is very relative to him) and sits in stuffy cabins, fingers a sewing machine of talking gestures. Tells adults all about what he thinks is best. He even sounds adult.

Cynicism is something that gets to everybody, and it does a marvelous job of keeping America's heart safe. He sticks with easy things, like harvests, and horses, and muskets, and trains. He knows his pulse must sound like the blur of a whirring sewing machine lacing his thoughts and feelings tidily together.

* * *

_Mm what'cha say?  
__Mm, that you only meant well - that it's all for the best - that it's just what we need  
__Well of course you did - of course it is - you decided this?_

* * *

But America is a child, and when they refuse him something that strikes him as painfully obvious, America tries to reason with them. They deny him again, and their stupidity is making him anxious. They must realize that as an embodiment of them, he really does know that this is true and will have to be so. This is so. This will be so. They deny him again, and his heart thumpthumpthumps like a rabbit.

He stamps his foot.

They don't expect that, because America is so jaded and mature and-

He opens his mouth wide, at first reason wells up in his throat, but somewhere along the way, he just gives up. He doesn't want to do anything except act his age, and give in - he almost smiles through the frustration, anxiety and childish fury - to his human qualities. Instead of logic, and sensible things like harvests, and horses, and muskets, and trains, out comes a tantrum like squeal.

It turns into a scream, and when he finally pushes words out, he only repeats that he wants it, he wants it, he wants it, he wants it, and he stamps his foot, and refuses to move.

Shocked, they stare, and try to cajole him back to maturity, but he will have absolutely none of it.

He screams and wails, and not one of them can bring themselves to do as they feel might work - bend the little colony over some knee and give him a hiding.

* * *

_Where are we?  
What the hell is going on?  
The dust has only just begun to fall_

* * *

Britain crooks his mouth in disapproval, and America scuffs his foot. He's being reprimanded for neglecting his duties as a nation - he should be helping with all the sensible adult things, but America has taken to rolling in the long grass, and playing hide and seek with the children. The grown-ups, exasperated and none willing to actual chastise America, himself, finally request that Britain comes.

When Britain comes, America calls him something rude and tries to run away from responsibilities.

Britain has absolutely no qualms about slinging America over his lap and smacking him firmly, until America's protests turn into squealed apologies.

Now, however, Britain is engaging him in conversation - the feeling of Britain patronizing him is something America needs to feel. Even as he guiltily stares at his shoes, and looks as nervous as a jackrabbit.

They reach an agreement - agreement? America pouts rebelliously, but England is the grown up and America is still a little kid - and then Britain coaxes America away from his never-speak-to-you-again with a smile that smells of rain, and out-stretched arms. America cuddles up to England and that forever heartbeat, resting his head against the thrumming.

And Britain makes it all better just by rocking America, and humming lullabies into his hair. America shuts his eyes, and leans closer; finally, finally allowed to be. He settles, so naturally into the curve of Britain's arms, and Britain rocks him back and forth like a comforting pulse, of rain, of hearts, of years that splash like water on his skin.

He loves Britain; completely, forever and ever.

* * *

**May your quills be ever sharp.**


End file.
